The US secretary of state has said the US continues to oppose an Israeli offensive on Rafah without a plan to protect civilians. More than a million Palestinians have taken refuge from Israel's assault in the city in southern Gaza. Speaking at the end of a lengthy trip to the Middle East, Antony Blinken also urged Hamas to accept the current offer for a ceasefire
Fed announces it will keep interest rates at 5.25% to 5.5% as rate of inflation remains above target of 2%The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it is holding interest rates steady at 5.25% to 5.5%, their highest level in two decades, as inflation continues to dog the US economy.Though some had hoped the Fed would soon cut interest rates, which are at their highest level since 2007, the annual rate of inflation has stubbornly remained above 3%. The Fed's target rate is 2%. Continue reading...
The pandemic accelerated the shift away from notes and coins. But China and others are realising that transition has a priceOne of the idiosyncrasies of China's huge appetite for luxury goods has been the high sales of man bags - a niche item in the west. Their popularity initially reflected not just the fondness of the newly rich for conspicuous consumption, but also the practical need to carry large wodges of banknotes in a country that hadn't truly embraced credit cards. Early last decade, it was unremarkable to pay a quarter's rent or buy a car in cash.Yet even vegetable sellers in small markets, or people begging on the streets, now use QR codes. By 2020, 98% of people in a survey said they most commonly paid using smartphone apps. The advantage, for the consumer, is convenience. For the authorities it offers not only efficiency but oversight, in a country which is battling corruption and which closely surveils its citizens. Beijing has also been promoting a digital yuan" developed by its central bank. Continue reading...
Away from the back-and-forth of the campaign trail, thousands of students are taking part in pro-Palestinian encampment-style protests at more than 50 university campuses across the US
A day with some blind and partially sighted walkers has shown me how much I barely notice - and how hard it is to find the right wordsHow many shades of green are there? Whatever the answer may be, I soon ran out of words to describe them. I was walking north along the Grand Union canal, trying and failing to adequately describe what I could see, to a friend who couldn't. This was Dave Heeley, ultra-runner, who in 2008 became the first blind person to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. Today we were walking rather than running - which, with me guiding him, was just as well.I had guided a blind adventurer once before when I took part in the television series Pilgrimage. One of my fellow pilgrims was the remarkable Amar Latif. We were high up on the side of a deep, lush valley in eastern Serbia. I was focused on the trickiness of the path itself, but Amar kept asking me to describe the vista. I looked down that valley at the mountains in the distance and simply didn't know how or where to start. I had a bash, as there was plainly plenty of material to work with, but didn't feel I had done justice to the richness of that scene.Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Rejection by three-judge panel fuels new uncertainty about district boundaries as state prepares for congressional electionsA new congressional map giving Louisiana a second majority-Black House district was rejected on Tuesday by a panel of three federal judges, fueling new uncertainty about district boundaries as the state prepares for fall congressional elections.The 2-1 ruling forbids the use of a map drawn up in January by the legislature after a different federal judge blocked a map from 2022. The earlier map maintained a single Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black. Continue reading...
The viral Glasgow event made children cry and adults seethe. Could a California tribute provide some measure of absolution?She was the sad Oompa Loompa seen around the world. Inside a bleak warehouse in Glasgow, a supposed celebration of Wonka's delectable world of chocolate left children crying and parents calling the police. Attendees paid 35 to visit a bleak warehouse with a handful of props and posters; inside, they were treated to two jellybeans each and a few poorly costumed actors. Images of the event went extremely viral, making international news and inspiring a horror film and an hour-long documentary.Two months later, I found myself walking toward another grim-looking warehouse, this time in downtown Los Angeles. I was here for Willy's Chocolate Experience LA, a tribute to the Glasgow disaster promising live entertainment, a red carpet-style photo op and a rare chance to meet the celebrity Oompa Loompa herself. Continue reading...
Violent clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and counter-demonstrators broke out at the University of California in Los Angeles. Aerial footage shows people trying to break through barriers protecting the pro-Palestinian protest group. Administrators called in law enforcement, who surrounded the area. The 7 October attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza, and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian territory, have unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since the antiracism protests of 2020 after the death of George Floyd. Police have arrested hundreds of students across the US, including dozens at Columbia University, where protesters barricaded a university building
We chose Yale and it chose us, but one party was betrayedOliver was arrested this morning. 13 students arrested," Ella texted me at 8.27am, No, 45."Are you awake? Should we go? I'm feeling paralyzed right now."Grey Battle studies political science at Yale University. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama Continue reading...
The South Dakota governor's proud dog murder tells a lot about how posturing Trumpists like she and Greg Gianforte thinkAfter South Dakota's Republican governor, Kristi Noem, proudly admitted in a forthcoming memoir to marching her young puppy Cricket to a gravel pit to kill her with a shotgun, she rationalized the despicable act by arguing that Cricket had been aggressive.She also said that she used the same gravel pit to shoot a disgusting, musky, rancid" unnamed goat - but botched the job, leaving the goat to suffer unnecessarily while she rushed to her truck to get a second shell. (It's unclear why Noem, supposedly a shrewd outdoorswoman, didn't think to carry more shells on her.) Continue reading...
Eighth-grader Acie Holland from Wisconsin hailed as hero for quick thinking after he noticed driver had become unresponsiveAn eighth-grade student recently averted a tragedy when he brought a careening school bus carrying him and his fellow students to a stop after its driver fell ill from a medical emergency, according to officials who are praising the boy's actions.Acie Holland III was taking a bus ride home when he realized the woman driving had become unresponsive, his principal, Anna Young, wrote in a letter to the campus community. The bus veered into the oncoming traffic lane, prompting Acie to rush up to the driver, move her foot off the gas pedal and apply the brake. Continue reading...
Lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, election workers suing website for defamation, made disclosure in April court filingEmployees of the far-right website Gateway Pundit, which has played a key role in spreading lies about the 2020 election, were worried contributors were not credible and expressed concerns about plagiarism, a court filing last month revealed.Lawyers for Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers suing the site for defamation, made the disclosure in a 16 April court filing seeking a court order forcing the website to turn over more internal documents. They said they had obtained text messages from Gateway Pundit's director of operations and associate editor expressing concerns that a contributor engaged in plagiarism and made claims without any sources". Continue reading...
Paul Auster, the author of 34 books including the acclaimed New York Trilogy, has died aged 77. Auster became known for his highly stylised, quirkily riddlesome postmodernist fiction in which narrators are rarely other than unreliable and the bedrock of plot is continually shifting', the novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote in 2010 Continue reading...
League commissioner Jessica Berman talks ballooning franchise values, the merits of expansion and reducing injuriesNo soccer league in the world is experiencing a boom comparative to the NWSL in 2024. Last month, the world's first purpose-built stadium for a women's sports franchise opened in Kansas City, marking the new home of the Current. San Diego Wave broke its NWSL home opener attendance record with over 32,000 fans, while the NWSL was listed at No 5 on the World's 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2024.At the NWSL we are working to drive innovation, growth and increased investment in women's soccer," Jessica Berman, the NWSL's commissioner, tells the Guardian. I'm excited about the 2024 season and to see what else we can accomplish in the women's soccer space." Continue reading...
New York police moved on to the campus to clear out Hamilton Hall, an academic building that had been taken over as part of pro-Palestine protests. Police arrested nearly 100 people as they cleared Columbia University of demonstrators who were issued a notice to disband their encampment after negotiations failed to come to a resolution Continue reading...
The president is trailing the hard right - and forthcoming European elections could leave him a political lame duckIn the latest of his visionary speeches on the future of Europe, Emmanuel Macron called for the EU to transform itself into a military power or face death". Yet his own presidency of France may be about to enter a long twilight zone unless he can reverse his party's deepening slump in June's European parliament election.Macron's unpopularity is the main reason why his centrist pro-European Renaissance party is trailing a distant second in opinion polls behind Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally (RN). Le Pen's list is led by Jordan Bardella, 29, the rising star in the populist anti-immigration party. Renaissance, whose list is headed by little-known MEP Valerie Hayer, is down to 17.5% in the latest survey while the RN is on 31%. The two parties were neck-and-neck in the last European election, five years ago .Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre Continue reading...
by Diana Ramirez-Simon, Jonathan Yerushalmy, Edward H on (#6MFQ2)
NYPD officers move on to campus on Tuesday evening to clear out Hamilton Hall building taken over by protesters, with reports of more arrests at City College of New York
For the first time Ukraine had the right conditions to make reparations to those subjected to crimes such as rape and sexual slavery. What would it take to replicate this globally?Across the world, women and girls continue to be plagued by gross human rights violations. One that is specifically targeted at them is conflict-related sexual violence. Living in conflict, for so many people, means the possibility of being subjected to life-altering crimes such as sexual torture, rape and slavery.Now, survivors of wartime sexual violations in Ukraine are to receive reparation payments. It is a landmark case - the fastest that a country at war has created a system to fulfil the right to reparation. Why has this right not been enacted in a timely manner globally? Continue reading...
New York City police have entered Columbia University in an apparent effort to disperse pro-Palestinian protesters who seized and occupied a classroom building and have been demonstrating on the campus for two weeks. Some students were escorted off campus with their hands zip tied behind their backs. Some protesters were loaded on to law enforcement buses parked outside the university.
Time magazine called the ex-president's plans an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world'Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws. Continue reading...
Police say four officers who died serving warrant over firearms possession were heroes' as investigation into shooting continuesEight law-enforcement officers were shot, four fatally, during a shootout on Monday outside a home in North Carolina while serving a warrant to someone wanted for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. It was the deadliest attack on US law enforcement since 2016.Three of the four law-enforcement officers killed were working on a fugitive taskforce as agents with the US Marshals Service, and the fourth was a police officer who had recently been named officer of the month by his department. Continue reading...
Keith Davidson takes stand as judge fines ex-president maximum financial penalty for violating gag order - and threatens jail timeDonald Trump was confronted with the details of how the former lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor, secured the $130,000 in hush money at the heart of his criminal trial in New York, after being found to be in criminal contempt of a gag order prohibiting attacks on witnesses.The direct examination of the lawyer, Keith Davidson, is expected to continue on Thursday when the trial resumes. Here are the key takeaways from day nine of People of the State of New York vs Donald J Trump: Continue reading...
Hush-money trial hears about ex-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard asking Keith Davidson: Did he cheat on Melania?'Donald Trump's New York criminal trial heated up on Tuesday afternoon as Keith Davidson, former attorney for both Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor, and Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model, was questioned by prosecutors about texts in which he was asked whether Trump had cheated on his wife.In those texts, former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard asked Davidson: Did he cheat on Melania?" and Do you know if the affair was during his marriage to Melania?" Continue reading...
A pro-Palestine demonstrator used a jug to defend against officers. Now the image has become a meme of the movementAs college students across the US demand administrators divest from Israel and support Palestinian freedom, scenes of brutal arrests have spread across social media. But in recent days, a more playful meme has emerged: the water-cooler jug as an icon of resistance.Last week, students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, barricaded themselves inside of a campus building after police showed up to their protest in riot gear. The situation turned tense: while the students held the line against the police, who struck them with batons, one anonymous protester decided to fight back, bonking a cop on the helmet with a water jug that had originally been used as a drum. Continue reading...
Pro-Palestinian protesters have taken over Hamilton Hall, a key campus building, after talks to end the encampment failedPro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University have occupied a building on campus in an escalation of their months-long demonstration against Israel's war in Gaza.The takeover of Hamilton Hall - named after one of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton - followed the failure of talks with university authorities aimed at winning the protesters' agreement to dismantle an encampment of about 120 tents. Continue reading...
The regime wants to crush resistance. But those it rules continue to push back against its brutalityThe protests that exploded across Iran following Mahsa Amini's death in custody in September 2022 were a turning point. The young Iranian-Kurdish woman had been detained by the morality police" for improper hijab". Not only did young women take to the streets and cast off their scarves in fury, but parents and grandparents came too. The protests were strikingly socially diverse. Critically, men joined the cries of woman, life, freedom". The regime reacted with predictable fury, killing hundreds and arresting thousands. It succeeded in suppressing the demonstrations. But many women refused to return to obeying the strict dress code.It was inevitable that the Iranian leadership would strike back. Its quarrel is not only with women's liberties, but with the precedent set for defiance. It is determined to crush opposition as it crushed the street protests, with a court sentencing a popular rapper to death - not for violence but simply dissent. Toomaj Salehi, courageous in supporting the nationwide protests in 2022, was found guilty of corruption on Earth". He had previously been sentenced to six years over his role, before being freed by a court citing a technicality. Continue reading...
The right has painted nonviolent protests against the war on Gaza as hotbeds of woke' terrorism. It's a pretext for repressionAcross the world people have been shocked by social media footage of heavily armed law enforcement officers arresting peacefully protesting students and professors at university campuses around the United States. The so-called land of the free and home of the brave" looks neither free nor brave - except for the brave protesters who continue to stand up to state and university repression.Although government repression of student protests is not unique to either the US or this particular period, the current orgy of state repression is very much an illustration of the current crisis of liberal democracy as it is squeezed by both illiberalism and neoliberalism. Continue reading...
Authorities clear two buildings at Cal Poly Humboldt overnight, arresting students and faculty and detaining at least one journalistPolice cracked down on a pro-Palestine demonstration at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, early on Tuesday morning, clearing two buildings that protesters had occupied since last week, arresting dozens of people and detaining at least one journalist.The public university on California's far north coast said in a statement early Tuesday that an operation by law enforcement, which included police from across the state, had restored order" to the campus. Continue reading...
Pro-Palestine protesters disrupted a US Senate armed forces committee where the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, was giving testimony. As Austin spoke, one protester got up carrying a 'let Gaza live' sign and said: 'How can you talk about US leadership when we're supporting genocide in Gaza?'
Police say officers were in Charlotte serving warrant for suspect, who was also killed, wanted over firearms possessionEight law-enforcement officers were shot, four fatally, during a shootout on Monday outside a home in North Carolina. The officers were serving a warrant to a person wanted for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon when the shooting began.As marshals approached a home on the 5000 block of Galway Drive in Charlotte, the subject of the warrant began shooting at them in the front yard, police said. Officers shot back and killed the man. Continue reading...
No dog person himself, apparently even Trump sees the bad optics in having a puppy killer' as a running mateKristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, had a shot" at being named Donald Trump's presidential running mate - but blew it by boasting about shooting her dog to death, a Trump insider reportedly said.She was already unlikely to be picked as VP but had a shot," the New York Post quoted an unnamed Trump ally as saying. Continue reading...
Dozens of protesters have taken over a building at Columbia University in New York, barricading the entrances and unfurling a Palestine flag out of a window, as the UN human rights chief said he was troubled" by how law enforcement has dealt with the recent wave of campus demonstrations. In the latest escalation of uprest on US campuses, video footage showed protesters on Columbia's Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall early on Tuesday and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building. Protesters ignored the Monday ultimatum to abandon their encampment or risk suspension
An intense and organized effort to bring down personal and professional repercussions on participants is playing out onlineAs demonstrations over the war in Gaza have surged on campuses, around cities and in offices across the US in recent weeks, a visible tension has emerged between the desire for public protest and a fear of professional reprisals.On the Columbia University campus, where the latest spike in protests began on 17 April, demonstrators have worn masks and used blankets to block counter protesters from filming students. Protesters at a tent encampment at the University of Michigan handed out masks upon entry, and students there refused to give reporters their full names in case the school took punitive action against them. At Harvard, the Palestine Solidarity Committee told the Guardian they had suspended doing press interviews out of regard for student safety. Continue reading...
Last year was the most dangerous to be a reporter since 2015. Without the courage of correspondents risking everything to report from conflict areas, we could be at risk of zones of silence' spreading around the worldConflict in Gaza, war in Ukraine, a battle over the global environment - the world is becoming an increasingly hostile place, particularly for frontline journalists.Last year saw 99 killings of reporters, up 44% on 2022 and the highest toll since 2015.Jonathan Watts is the Guardian's global environment writer Continue reading...
Public life is polluted by lies, abuse and the disregard for basic norms - and the prime minister is not blamelessPedro Sanchez has built a reputation as a successful political gambler, but suspending public duties and threatening to resign, as he did last week, was a political bombshell. It was so extraordinary it led to five days of national puzzlement and the wildest speculation over his motives: from mental health to true love and all kinds of shenanigans associated with the dark arts of politics in between. His announcement that he would not, after all, be resigning, came as another surprise, even to some of his political allies.The timing of this apparently self-inflicted political turmoil adds to its oddity. The centre-left socialist prime minister spent months putting together a fragile parliamentary majority after a close election in July 2023. His coalition government is now on the verge of passing a contentious amnesty law for Catalan officials involved in the unauthorised vote on Catalonia's independence in 2017, and his Spanish Socialist Workers' party (PSOE) is leading the polls ahead of a momentous regional election in Catalonia on 12 May.Maria Ramirez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain Continue reading...
Nothing screams covering up war crimes' like insisting that there should absolutely not be an independent investigationDid you know that the Palestinians are the very first people in the world to ethnically cleanse and mass murder themselves? I know it sounds weird, but - as American and Israeli politicians keep reminding us - these are savages" that we are talking about here. Normal rules don't apply, you've got to follow the Palestine Rules.The Palestine Rules dictate you do the following: ignore every international agency if that agency says anything remotely critical about Israel. Certainly don't listen to international aid agencies like Oxfam when they argue that the government of Israel is deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip". Nope, the fact that babies in Gaza are dying of malnutrition is all their fault. The fact that children in Gaza are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known is nothing to do with Israel, it's the fault of those pesky Palestinians. Continue reading...
League is in unique position to help with climate crisis, setting ambitious goal for a 50% drop in its carbon footprint by 2030From a climate perspective, the world is in peril. It's undeniable at this point. Today, though, there are organizations working to find solutions. But when it comes to the universe of pro sports, which has long been a source of pollution like other big businesses, where can answers be found? That's the question those within leagues like the National Basketball Association are debating now. While the NBA has its own challenges when it comes to air travel and its carbon footprint, the league is also progressing forward with substantive changes, small and large, to assuage the climate crisis. And it's in a unique position to do just that.Unlike anonymous research departments or lesser-known scientific organizations, the NBA is one of the most popular outfits in the world. It's on the minds and lips of millions of people on a daily basis. This gives it the chance to manufacture change. A point not lost on many around the league. Continue reading...
Cheng Charlie' Saephan, who was born in Laos and immigrated in 1994, wants to provide for his family and find a good doctor'It was about eight years after a cancer diagnosis when Cheng Charlie" Saephan, his wife and their friends bought a batch of lottery tickets at a north-east Oregon convenience store in early April.They ended up winning the eighth-largest jackpot in US lottery history, officials revealed Monday, when Saephan appeared at a news conference and wondered how much time he had left to enjoy the windfall he is splitting with two of his loved ones. Continue reading...
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